Gerard Barron wants to mine the ocean—and he's not afraid to get on Greenpeace's bad side

Gerard Barron wants to mine the ocean—and he’s not afraid to get on Greenpeace’ bad side WHAT DONALD TRUMP WANTS, Donald Trump must get.

- KATIE UNDERWOOD

This past April, perhaps noticing his 51st-state critical-mineral grab was failing, he loudly issued an executive order expediting permits for companies to commercially mine far-flung seabeds rich in nickel, cobalt and other metals—demand for which is set to quadruple by 2040 to power the clean-tech boom. There’s just one problem: those seabeds belong to everyone, sir.

That didn’t seem to bother Gerard Barron, CEO of the Metals Company, a Vancouver-based sea-mining firm. Its American subsidiary seized on Trump’s mining zeal to stake out the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a four-and-a-half-million-square-kilometre oceanic expanse between Hawaii and Mexico. Barron’s billion-dollar goal for the coming years? Step one: slurp millions of metal-heavy nodules off the Zone’s floor using underwater vessels (picture remotely controlled Dysons). Step two: refine and sell the nuggets to metal-hungry industries. Step three: recycle the castoffs. Step four: stop extraction altogether. Barron, a self-described environmentalist, calls the plan “progress.” Scientists and NGOs, worried about disrupting little-understood ecosystems 6,000 metres below deck, call it a potential climate cataclysm. Trump calls it business as usual.

The “big game,” as you’ve called them in the past, are polymetallic nodules. They kind of resemble uglier truffles.

I think they’re beautiful. They’re about the size of potatoes, and they literally just rest on the ocean floor, like this one sitting on the palm of my hand; it’s probably four to five million years old. Actually, if you go into most of my jacket pockets, you'll find some nodule dust. I always keep one with me—and I do have favourites.

What’s so special about these spuds?